that guy

Do remember that guy from years ago? When you went to a bar, he was singing along to "The Piano Man" in that tone-deaf, drunk, belligerent sort of way clutching his beer bottle. He probably had his baseball hat sideways in some "wiggity-wack" sort of fashion, which was his rebellious way of giving the finger to the Establishment. And his face, flushed boozy red, was contorting wildly while emoting the narrative of the song. And if some unfortunate guy bumped into that guy and made him spill his beer, that guy would loudly confront him.

that guy: Hey what's your problem?!
unfortunate guy:
tg: Yeah, I'm talking to you! What's your problem?!
ug: huh?
tg: You pushed me, @sshole. You gotta problem with me?
ug: oh, are you talking to me?
tg: You want to take this outside? Huh?! Do yuh?
ug: not really.
tg: Yeah...didn't think so...you better watch yourself...Queer!

Guess what? I played softball with that guy last night.

On a side note, I play softball in a co-ed rec league with some folks at work. I use the term "play" loosely because I suck. Though I am working on it--yesterday I went to the batting cages on my lunch hour and made contact with over 50% of the slow pitches. Sad to say, that's progress. After four games, my current batting average is .100. It was .000. My chief contribution to the team so far has been my attendance to help meet the minimum female headcount of 4 women so we don't forfeit as a co-ed team.

Anyhoo, that guy looks pretty much the same except all those beers have now given him a softer build and a carby face. He keeps his baseball hat on straight, but by the power of Grey Skull, he sure still loves to yell. Hey that shortstop got in our runner's way. Oh, you're just going to ignore me? Great! I'm just talking to myself out here! And when he gets called out: I can't believe you're making these calls in rec league! You've been giving us f*cking bad calls the last four games! And on and on and on.

To say that a person could suck the fun out of a rec league game for a person of my playing caliber is pretty pathetic. Unfortunately it wasn't only him, a lot of his teammates were also on the B!tch and Moan Express last night. Man, I just wanted to serve them a nice warm glass of Shut the Hell Up, but that would have been like opening a fresh carafe of whine for them. And I was soooo sick of that.

I would like to say that we won but we lost pretty soundly, something like 17-3. Needless to say, the complaining was nonstop, even though they were winning. I can only imagine how tedious this game would have been if they lost.

Anyhoo, if you were wondering what happened to that guy from years ago, he's playing softball in the rec league. He's probably due to have an aneurysm soon, so better hurry if you want to see him.

UPDATED: So a friend informs me that this guy is ubiquitously known as Softball Guy. He's a common reference for the guy who treats a rec league softball game like the World Series. Yeesh. So there's more of them?